JENKS] WILD RICE AS A FOOD 1085 
eat their meat and usually their maple sugar alone.’ Le Sueur spoke 
of two features of the feasts of the Dakota. He was invited to their 
wigwams, and, after their customary weeping ceremony ‘‘the chief 
offered him wild rice to eat, and according to their cuftom put the 
firft three fpoonfuls in to his [own] mouth.”* The ‘‘ Mandantons” 
(Dakota band) invited him to a great banquet where there were 100 
men, each with his plate.* 
Hennepin and his companions were captured and adopted into 
Dakota families; after pipe smoking, in the ceremony of adoption, 
the principal chief gave them wild rice, presenting it on birch-bark 
dishes. The women had seasoned the food with sun-dried whortle- 
berries. He said that they were as good as currants—‘‘ces Barbares 
nous donnérent & manger de Ja folle avoine, dont j’ai fait mention. 
Il nous la prefentérent dans de grands plats d’écorce de bouleau. 
Les femmes Sauvages l’ayoient affaifonnée avee des bluez. Ce font 
des graines noires, qu’elles font fecher au Soleil pendant été, & qui 
font auffi bonnes que des raifins de Corinthe.”* He was also given 
wild rice with the smoked roe of fishes—‘‘* Aquipaguetin, qui m’avoit 
adopté, ne me donnoit qwun peu de folle avoine cing ou fix fois la 
femaine avec des oeufs de poiffons boucannez pour me nourir. Les 
femmes faifoient cuire tout cela dans des pots de terre.’ Dablon 
said, ‘‘et la graisse mélée avec la folle avoine, fait le mets le plus 
delicat de ce pais.” This was among the Maskotin. 
Hoffman wrote in 1892 that the Menomini Indians boiled their rice 
and ate it plain with maple sugar. It was also sometimes boiled with 
meat or vegetables, or a broth was made of it and was served as soup.’ 
Mr George Lawe wrote of these Indians in the early forties that their 
rice when boiled and eaten with maple sugar is very palatable and 
nutritious, and serves them instead of breadstuffs.* Reverend Chry- 
sostom Verwyst, a lifelong missionary among the Indians south of 
Lake Superior, says: ** Wild rice is very palatable, and the writer and 
his dusky spiritual children prefer it to the rice of commerce, although 
it does not look quite so nice.” * 
The Indians at Lac Courte Oreille reservation, and doubtless all 
other wild rice producing Indians, will eat the grain cooked in any 
form in which they are able to procure it. During the three weeks 
following the harvest of 1899 I was daily, almost constantly, in their 
houses, wigwams, war-dance circle, and Mide’ society lodge, and did 
not witness a meal in which wild rice was not consumed. In fact, 
during the eight days covered by their dances, when I saw them eat 
three or four times daily, wild rice, cooked in a manner similar to 

1Carver, Travels, p. 262. 5 Tbid., p. 355. 
2Shea, Early Voyages, p. 107. © Relations des Jésuites, 1671, p. 44. 
8La Harpe, Journal, p. 66. * Hoffman, Menomini Indians, p. 291. 
+Hennepin, Nouvelle Decouverte, p. 347. 8Indian Affairs Report, 1843, p. 434. 
® Verwyst, Historical Sites of Chequamegon Bay, in Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. x11, p. 429. 
19 ETH, pr 2—O1 dt 

